Employment Law Paper
BUS415
July 17, 2009

Employment Law Paper The history and evolution has changed considerably over the past century. Back in the early 1800’s, our country became industrialized. This meant that owners and shareholders became more powerful in making decisions on how employees will work and perform under their business. Becoming industrialized also meant that employees needed protection from being over worked, under paid and age limits needed to be set so that big corporate employers were not working minors. This protection by both “…federal and state legislation were enacted to protect workers’ rights.” (Cheeseman, 2007) These protections that were enacted by the legislative branch included, but not limited to, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Americans Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Family Medical Leave Act. One employment situation that comes to mind is a situation where an employee had to take Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) due to a pregnancy. Additionally, she also has Muscular Sclerosis. The employee was employed with the company for nineteen years and the company was well aware of her existing condition of muscular sclerosis when they had hired her. Her work performance was always spot on and she knew the job inside and out. Her proper employee title was Technical Writer. She drafted reports that only an expert could put together and she was the perfect employee for the job. During her time with the company, approximately two years ago, she had fallen in love and got married. Shortly thereafter, she also informed the company that she was in fact pregnant and would need to use FMLA to stay home to take care of her baby. When it came time to deliver, there were complications from her existing muscular sclerosis condition. Her health deteriorated and while she was out on FMLA taking care of the baby and her health, her twelve weeks of FMLA ran out. She then got a doctor’s note stating that she would have to stay out for another six to eight weeks because of her health. The company agreed and held her position. However, after the six to eight weeks were up, she then brought another doctors note that stated she needed another additional six to eight weeks. This time, the company had no choice but to let her go. In the beginning of her leave, she was fully covered by Family Medical Leave Act, however, after reaching her maximum allowance of twelve weeks of leave, and an extended courtesy amount of leave, she exhausted all of her rights to be covered under Family Medical Leave Act and the company was no longer liable to provide any type of coverage. Additionally, while she was out on FMLA, her position remained open and the company did not advertise her position to be filled. Moreover, she could not file for unemployment compensation because she was not able and “available for work and seeking employment.” (Cheeseman, 2007) In this scenario, the law resolved and discrepancies there may have been with allowance of time to be out of work and the employer was not liable for any further coverage. The employer was obligated to perform certain functions, such as, not filling her position and keeping the position open until she returned and she was not terminated because of her pregnancy or existing health condition. Even in this condition, an agent or contract laborer would have been protected under the same Federal Law. FMLA applied to this situation. Even if she was a union employee, she was protected and covered under the FMLA. Another scenario that comes to mind is in regards to worker’s compensation. A situation that happened at work with one employee who became injured on the job. Her complaint was that she was pushing herself away from the desk, in her chair that had wheels, and strained her knee. (Yes, it’s true!) She also stated that because she did not have a rubber matt under her chair to help her chair to slide smoothly away from her desk, that she was not ergonomically safe in her office environment. This incident happened while she was at work and “the injury arose out of and in the course of his or her employment.” (Cheeseman, 2007) She was clearly covered under the Workers’ Compensation Act. There were two legal accounts that took place here, one was a Workers’ Compensation Claim and the other was Occupational Safety and Health Act was violated. Because the company did not provide “General duty standards. The act imposes a general duty on an employer to provide a work environment free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees. This is so even if no specific regulation applies to the situation.” (Cheeseman, 2007) Moreover, she filed a workman’s’ compensation claim and an OSHA complaint and won the case. Even if she was an employee that was covered under a collective bargaining agreement, an agent, or a contract employee, the same laws would have applied in this situation. The ways the federal employment law was effective in this case was that she was awarded her compensation, she had surgery on her knee and workers compensation paid for it, and her job was saved for her until she was able to return to work.

A different situation that has happened at the workplace was where a woman was interviewed and hired on her merits of the interview and thirty days after she started, she informed the company that she was pregnant, in fact, four months pregnant. The position that she was hired for was a Data Collection position that was a union position and covered under the collective bargaining agreement. This position required her to climb in and out of tanks, large military vehicles, long hours outside and exposed to heat, and cold and inclement weather conditions. When she was first hired, she signed an Essential Functions Form that stated that she had no disabilities and that she could perform all functions essential to the work mission. Even though she knew that she would have to take off because of her pregnancy, she knew that she was covered under the Title VII, Sex Discrimination “Pregnancy Discrimination Act was enacted as an amendment to Title VII.5 This amendment forbids employment discrimination because of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Thus, a work rule that prohibits the hiring of pregnant women violates Title VII.” (Cheeseman, 2007) Because Equal Employment Opportunity laws prohibit employers from asking questions that may lead a potential employee into answering a personal question regarding their race, sex, creed, even a question that pertains to whether they are pregnant or plan to have kids, the company could not ask her if she was pregnant at the time of the interview. The company was not happy that she failed to convey that she was pregnant and knew that there was nothing they could do about it. However, because she was not employed for a full year or had worked 1,250 hours, she was not eligible for Family Medical Leave Act. Regardless of whether she was a CBA employee or not there were no laws that would cover her position while she was out of work taking care of her baby. She had to exhaust all of the vacation leave that she had accrued and then the company fired her because of abandonment of her position. There were no laws and no CBA agreement that stated that the company had to hold her position because she was not covered under any employment laws.

Reference
Cheeseman, H. R. (2007). The Legal Environment of Business and Online Commerce: Business Ethics, E-Commerce, Regulatory and International Issues, 5e. Chapter 20. Employment and Worker Protection Laws. Prentice Hall Inc. Retrieved July, 18, 2009.